Browsed byTag: design

While writing this column for the Ottawa Citizen on proposed changes to Canada’s immigration policy, an idea occurred to me that had taken years to crystallize. It emerged, strange but sharp, like a thorn buried under the skin that slowly eases free of the body’s confines. Immigration is an information design problem.

As you may have noticed, part of my thesis is available on BoingBoing. Assuming this whole attachment thing works as planned, the project in its entirety should be available here, now. So if you feel like reading over a hundred pages of research on wicked problems, service design, and border security, take a look!

Tomorrow, I’m heading to the Detroit Design Festival, where I’ll be creating my very first art installation for the Bordertown design group. The group has contributed costumes, games, souvenirs from aborted utopias, and other wonderful things. My piece is a series of design fictions about the future of border security in Istanbul. I based those fictions on this Guardian piece in which the Turkish PM says that the city should be split along international borders. I’ll share more about those…

A long time ago, my medieval studies professor said to me: “So, what are you interested in? What subject do you see yourself spending the rest of your life learning more about?” “…I’m not sure,” I told her. I want to be a novelist, I wanted to say. “I ask because you’re going to have to start thinking about your grad work.” She shuffled my paper on her desk. It was covered in check-marks for what she called “sparkling” prose….

A friend linked me to this stunning gallery of photos at the Guardian of Detroit, in ruins. As noted in the margins, large swathes of Detroit now more closely resemble the set of a post-apocalyptic film than they do an actual city. Aged and beautiful buildings have been left to rot. Even the books are still on library shelves, their presence an indication of systemic failure rather than any individual mistake. Granted, anyone who watches music videos has been familiar…

Okay, so you want to read some manga online. Good on you. It’s a rewarding pursuit, engaged in by millions of readers globally, of all types. You’re sure to find something that suits you: manga about flying, manga about fighting, manga about fucking. Different brushstrokes for different folks. You’ll love it. Wait. What’s that you say? You want to read licensed manga online? From commercial distributors? Well, that’s very noble of you. Let’s give that a shot. Let’s pick a…

Somebody cut a square out of a shopping bag just so that they could smuggle this footage out of China in 1990. It depicts the Kowloon Walled City. The Walled City was an act of spontaneous, collaborative architecture in response to political and social upheaval — a spatial harbinger of what the internet would eventually look like. Naturally, China destroyed it. To get an idea of what the coverage of the City’s destruction was like, watch this: Sidebar: The cheery…

Madeline Ashby has worked with Intel Labs, the Institute for the Future, SciFutures, Nesta, Data & Society, The Atlantic Council, the ASU Center for Science and the Imagination, Changeist, and others. She has spoken at SXSW, FutureEverything, MozFest, and other events. Her essays have appeared at BoingBoing, io9, WorldChanging, Creators Project, Arcfinity, MISC Magazine, and FutureNow. Her fiction has appeared in Slate, MIT Tech Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of the Machine Dynasty novels. Her novel Company Town was a Canada Reads finalist.